Think Less and Do More -- Susan Watkins

(Reflection on Topic of Choice)

If you want to meet someone who overthinks EVERYTHING, hang out with me for a day or two. By then end of our time together, you may leave feeling certain that I have never actually lived, just sat on one side of a glass window and observed my whole life.

In some ways you'd be right.

My whole life I have valued intellect, maturity, and rationality above emotion, playfulness, and intuition. As a very small child, I would rather be alone somewhere reading or playing with my stuffed animals than involved in a game of soccer or kickball. I would rather hide myself away in fantasy worlds than get out there into the real world of children. This continued sometime through middle school, when I experienced a startling change and "came out of my shell" in an explosion. I swung far in the other direction, and was suddenly the social butterfly with a tight group of friends who roamed the school fearlessly and didn't care what the popular girls thought. The boys liked me and I had the best friends a girl could ask for, and we wore our hearts on our sleeves and cried and laughed a lot together. I was loud and energetic and probably a little obnoxious, but I knew how to play and play I did.

Then in high school, I began to shift back to the other direction. It was a slower process and much more complicated, but I came to college open to new experiences but slowly building up a solid defense of walls. The first year of college didn't help-- despite all the great things that happened, it was also emotionally brutal and lonely. Sophomore year began the same way, if not worse... then, wonder of wonders, second semester I found my place on campus. Everything clicked. I found the people I loved, who loved me, who coaxed me out of my walls and hugged me and wanted to know who I really was.

And here I am, at the end of the first semester junior year, and I am learning how to play again. It is the most ironic thing I can think of, that a 19-year-old girl would struggle so much with cutting loose and having fun and loving and being loved. Yet here I am, a 19-year-old girl who is afraid of many things and only very gradually learning how to have fun again.

It is one of the hardest things ever and there is no end to the obstacles I face from all sides. My biggest obstacle is my intellect. I want to analyze every situation because -- and here is my true, deep confession -- I want to control every situation. I want to control every situation and eliminate the possibility of hurt for me or the ones I love. But, of course, trying to control our lives just sucks the real life right out of them.

Freedom is in helplessness. I want to stop thinking, stop controlling, and just experience. I want to stop worrying and just love. I want to stop preening and just dance.

I want it so bad, and I know it's coming. I want to think less and do more.